Carry Meeee! Baby On Board: How Animals Carry Their Young by Marianne Berkes

When you were a baby, someone carried you. Have you ever wondered what animal parents do?

Animals, like people, carry babies in all kinds of ways. In their arms or piggyback are the most popular ways, but a few, like the kangaroo, have a handy built-in expandable pouch for youngsters. Emperor penguins have an egg pouch between the males' feet into which eggs and very young ones fit to keep warm. Some animal parents have even more creative ways to carry the kiddies.

Being marsupials, baby opossums are born very small and most newborns spend a little time in their mother's rudimentary pouches and then switch to piggyback rides, holding on to her shaggy fur for dear life.

This animal hauls her babies from one place to another.The joeys have it easy as they all ride on their mother.

Piggyback works great for shaggy tree sloths, hundreds of baby wolf spiderlings, chimpanzees, anteaters, and even baby loons who can hop on dad's back to get warm. But Mama Otter has a twist on that trick: she floats on her back and carries her little one on her tummy where it's easy to keep her eyes on her baby. And when she needs to dive down deep for dinner, she tethers him to a handy strand of kelp.

This mom is like a living raft as she transports her pup.
She hunts for food for them and will never give up.

Mama Alligator has an even stranger twist to the piggyback concept. If danger is near, she calls her little hatchlings to hop in her mouth to hide. It's the last place any predator wants to be (and if he does, the last place he'll ever see).

When babies call their mothers, there is no time to pause.
She carries them to safety, grasped in her powerful jaws.

And like human babies, little ones like chimps are carried around in the parents' arms, right where they like to be.

Noted children's nature author, Marianne Berkes' Baby on Board: How Animals Carry Their Young (Dawn Publications) offers an engaging nature science book for both primary and middle grade readers. From loon to lion, manatee to chimpanzee, Berke's engaging nonfiction book provides jolly facts in rhyming couplets for the youngest animal lovers, and for older animal fans or researching middle graders there is an accompanying text with addition information on all twelve featured animals, as well as an appendix with a matching quiz, suggested curriculum connections, and a bibliography of books and websites, Illustrated by artist Cathy Morrison with charming artwork of parents and babies done in almost photographic detail, this versatile volume is a real twofer for children from preschool to middle school ages.

Shrinking Violets Need Not Apply! Look at Me! Wild Animal Show-Offs by Jim Arnovsky

Why are wild animals so stunningly beautiful?

What is the purpose of their showy displays and bold markings?

Why would certain creatures evolve arresting shapes, colors, and markings that make them stand out in a crowd? Mother Nature has her reasons.

Some, like the frilled lizard, the cobra, and the pufferfish make themselves look bigger and more intimidating to fend off potential predators. For some species, like the poison dart frog or the spotted scorpionfish, bright colors signal their wearers' warning--"Can't Touch This!"

But the most gorgeous, amazing, and breathtakingly spectacular displays are reserved for that special duty--reproduction. From the peacock's gloriously marked and colored tail feathers and the wild turkey's grand and imposing fantail, it's all about the survival of the fittest--or at least the fanciest--one of all. Deer, elk, and moose reveal their imposing racks in the fall. Even the modest little ruby-throated hummingbird can flash a color that says "Notice ME!" Animals that normally come in colors that blend right in with their chosen habitat can suddenly appear in gaudy full-dress colors for those "puttin' on the ritz" occasions in spring. Birds are superb at that, with the almost unlimited ability to grow flamboyant feathers with resplendent shapes, patterns, and hues, when they "promenade" for their annual prom.

In his forthcoming Look at Me!: Wild Animal Show-Offs (Sterling Books, 2018), the award-winning wildlife author-illustrator, Jim Arnovsky has created a nonfiction book with large and impressive illustrations, some shown in elegantly-designed fold-out pages, to show off a variety of nature's opulent powers of display, from the elk's extravagant antlers to the lacy filigree of the great egret's plumage, Arnovsky's unparalleled paintings delight readers and inspire interest in the science and art of nature's variety.

And for those more modest animals, whose motto is "Nothing to see here. Move along," Arnovsky's companion book to this latest is his Hidden Wildlife: How Animals Hide in Plain Sight.(Sterling Books, 2017)

In the Beginning! Meet My Family (Animal Babies and Their Families) Laura Purdie Salas

All families are different. But in one way, they are all the same. They are all devoted to doing whatever they can do to help their babies thrive.

The ways they do that can be different. There's a world of difference between the much-made-over baby elephant, cared for by its mother, grandmother, older sisters, and aunts, and the poison dart frog tadpole carried solo on its father's back into the nearest puddle of water, but animal parents do what they have to do.

"I'm in charge of all my meals. I graze for grasses, just like all the elders do," says the rhino calf.

"I have to climb over all my brothers and sisters just to get dinner," says one little piglet.

"I'm the only kid around. Having Mama to myself is great, but I sure would like someone to race with," a young horse foal complains.

Baby orangutans are only children, cradled and carried by their mothers into the treetops and fed her milk until they are able to climb and pick their own fruit, but baby sea turtle hatchlings crawl from the sandy nests their mothers carefully dug on shore and make a dash for the sea all by their lonesome. But, then, parent albatrosses play tag team on twelve hour shifts so that their chick is always guarded.

Every family is different. Each family is just right.

Mother (or Father) Nature knows best, in Laura Purdie Salas' Meet My Family!: Animal Babies and Their Families (Millbrook Press, 2018). Author Salas juxtaposes many styles of parenting among the many forms of animal life in the world. Familiar domestic animals and wild animals, as well as some less well-known species are featured as their parent's version of child care are showcased with the soft and charming illustrations of artist Stephanie F. Coleman. It's a big, wide, and wonderful world of parenting out there, and this nonfiction book, with its ample contrasts of care is a fine source for nature study for young naturalists. With its ample glossary and world map of animal homes, this one is good for one-to-one sharing or early-grade animal science study. Says School Library Journal, "A pleasing choice for young nonfiction enthusiasts that belongs on most elementary shelves."

Gorilla My Dreams? I Wish I Was a Gorilla by Jennifer Bove'

Sleeping in a giant nest in a tree? Playing all day in the woods? Literally hanging out all the time with your best friends? What kid wouldn't go for that?

What if you wished you were a gorilla? Then you became a young gorilla?

Could you eat like a gorilla? Live in a gorilla family?

Young beginning readers get to try out their inner ape in Harper's new Ranger Rick: I Wish I Was a Gorilla (I Can Read Level 1) (Harper, 2018). Author Jennifer Bove' takes would-be young gorillas through their day as a member of a gorilla troop--taking a ride on their mother's back, being protected by the the troop's Big Kahuna, the senior silverback, searching for sweet juicy fruits in the treetops, and playing with their friends all day long.

Gorilla School is way cool.

How would you learn to be a gorilla? Babies play a lot. Playing helps young gorillas learn to move like grown-up gorillas who roam around and climb trees. Wrestling and chasing one another and playing games teaches them how to get along with other gorillas.

Of course, there's more than fun and games to being a gorilla, and little ones have much to learn from each other and from their elders--what foods are best to eat and where to find them and what predators are dangerous and how to avoid them. That's not always easy, and gorilla troops have to stay on the move to find new foraging places. It takes a lot of food to feed a troop, and the elders must teach the younger ones how to look out for themselves and each other. It's a jungle out there, you know.

Author Jennifer Bove's easy-reading text offers lots of gorilla lore for primary nature lovers as she takes them through a day of being a gorilla. Big color photographs document life among these largest of primates as they care for each other, forage for food, play and socialize, and chill out together, with emphasis on the fun young gorillas clearly share with each other.

Being a gorilla could be cool for a while. But would you want to talk in grunts? Or eat plants and bugs?

In her appendix author Bove' also adds an collection of fun facts, "Did You Know?" a "Fun Zone" with recipes for gorilla cuisine such as "Ants on a Stick," and a glossary titled "Wild Words," that lends itself to classroom nature science studies. And if gorilla life is a bit too plant-based for some, other books by noted nature authors in the series include Ranger Rick: I Wish I Was a Lion (I Can Read Level 1) and Ranger Rick: I Wish I Was an Orca (I Can Read Level 1).

Stayin' Alive! Trickiest! 19 Sneaky Animals by Steve Jenkins

Survival can be tricky.

For most animals, finding food and avoiding danger is a full-time job. A few of them survive by being bigger, stronger, faster, or fiercer than other creatures.

But many animals use tricks to catch their prey or outsmart a predator.

For many animals, trick or treat is the story of their lives. If they're lucky, they trick hungry predators. If they fail, they will be some critter's treat!

Being big and strong and bold has its good points. But maintaining those impressive physiques and power takes a lot of work, and some animals have evolved less taxing ways to avoid danger and perhaps get a square meal at the same time.

That's where being tricky comes in handy.

What if you are a tiny little tree lizard--easy pickings for a big snake or a bird? But if your tail looks looks like a ragged brown leaf, you can hunker down on a tree and blend right in. That's how the diminutive satanic leaf-tailed gecko of Madagascar gets by without getting eaten. The leafy sea dragon, a species of sea horse, uses a similar trick: his shaggy green shape looks just like a piece of floating seaweed. And the western hognose snake takes the trickery even further. He rolls over to play a disgustingly stiff dead snake, even adding a convincing little trickle of blood from his open mouth to gross out a predator.

Looking non-edible works for those guys, but other creatures disguise themselves as something no sensible predator would dare to eat, like the harmless wasp beetle who looks much like a real wasp. Other sneaky animals disguise themselves, not to avoid being a meal, but to get one. The green vine snake twists around a branch like, well, a vine, to fool birds who need a break into becoming a tasty dinner.

And some crafty critters are getaway artists. The squid and octopus disappear in a cloud of black ink. The blue-tailed skink drops part of his bright-colored tail, leaving it wiggling persuasively just long enough to keep a hungry predator busy while the business end of the skink escapes. And some animals find ways to prey on other critters while keeping themselves well out of the way of danger: the archerfish shoots a mouthful of water to bring down a insect on the wing, and the bolas spider, no doubt an inspiration to Spider Man, downs a bug with a sticky strand of web he shoots out to reel his prey right in.

Artist Steve Jenkins gives nineteen sly and sneaky creatures their due in the latest in series, Trickiest!: 19 Sneaky Animals (Extreme Animals) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017). Done up in his eye-catching trademark paper collage illustrations, Jenkins' slyly humorous text offers diagrams comparing each animal with human size and a world map showing its habitat, and he also appends a glossary, a web of his subjects arranged by shared traits, and a bibliography of additional readings for nature science research.

For animals more deadly than devious, read this one with its companion book, Deadliest!: 20 Dangerous Animals (Extreme Animals) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.)

Beware! Deadliest! 20 Dangerous Animals by Steve Jenkins

Danger!

For millions of years, animals have been killing and eating other animals.

Luckily, most animals don't want to eat us. But if we are not careful, many of them can still be deadly.

Take, for example, the Kodiak bear--ten feet tall and capable of consuming most of a full-grown deer in a day and not opposed to stalking a human if necessary. But unlike his paler cousin, the polar bear, the Kodiak is limited in range to a few islands off Alaska.

But the equally dangerous bull shark is found in shallow fresh or ocean waters along most of earth's coasts. What does he eat? Anything he wants!--from old tires to seals, bottles to sea turtles, and the bull shark is responsible for most of the shark attacks on humans worldwide. Still, this big boy trails the saltwater crocodile, a seeming leftover from prehistoric days, at nearly twenty feet long and 1,500 pounds, a formidable hunter who is known even to attack small boats. Fearful as they can be, though, Kodiak bears and bull sharks together annually count for less than two annual human deaths worldwide. The monstrous and poisonous Komodo dragon, the saltwater crocodile, and even the tiger are less of a danger to people than hippopotamuses, who kill 300 to 500 humans annually, and King cobras, whose yearly toll is around 1,000.

Deadliness comes in smaller sizes, too, with the venomous box jellyfish, stonefish, and sea snake, the poisonous dart frog, blue-ringed octopus, and stonefish lurking about in exotic locations. But these heavy hitters in the animal kingdom are minor threats to humans compared to (wait for it!)--dogs and mosquitoes! Yes, feral dogs can kill up to 55,000 people a year, and mosquito-borne diseases kill more than a million of us annually.

In his book in series, Steve Jenkins' just published Deadliest!: 20 Dangerous Animals (Extreme Animals) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017) reveals a score of pretty scary creatures, with plenty of "Hey, look at this!" appeal. Along with his strikingly realistic paper collage illustrations, naturalist Jenkins details both the physical characteristics and natural habitat map of each animal, with scale drawings of each animal compared to a human. These deadly animals are appropriately intimidating, but Jenkins' detailed thumbnails and glossary provide some reassurance that most of them are limited to very small ranges on earth.

Still, there is just enough scare-factor to whet the appetite of young naturalists to seek out more information on their favorite deadly critter, and for that this author-illustrator also provide a handy bibliography for both recreational reading and those sure-to-come research reports. Along with its new companion book, Trickiest!: 19 Sneaky Animals (Extreme Animals) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017) these short, inexpensive, and irresistible natural science books should be first purchases for school, classrooms, and home libraries.

Pied Beauty? Lesser Spotted Animals: The Coolest Ceatures You've Never Heard Of by Martin Brown

FED UP WITH THE SAME OLD ANIMALS?

HAD ENOUGH OF HIPPOS? TIRED OF TIGERS?

DO YOU WANT ANIMALS THAT ARE FRESH, NEW, EXCITING?

Up to there with bears? Peeved by penguins? Testy about turtles? Weary of whales? Curmudgeonly about all those ubiquitous cute critters?

Has Martin Brown got a book for you! Brown's brand-new Lesser Spotted Animals (Scholastic Press, 2017, Am. edition) is loaded with lots of quaint and curious creatures of zoological lore that may be gnu to you.

IT'S GOODBYE TO THE GNU! CHEERIO TO THE CHEETAH.

SAY HI TO THE HIROLA AND NICE TO MEET YOU, NUMBAT!

Take the numbat, an exotic compatriot of the well-known wombat (neither of which are bats, by the way), an Aussie marsupial without a pouch, mind you, but a mighty mite of a deep-digging termite eater. Reputed to be cuter than a meerkat, with stripes and a long furry tail, he's still on the endangered list.

Then there's Sammy, the sand cat of the Sahara, who in a small sand storm could easily pass for a orange-stripper house cat. The sand cat is one of those fairly rare psammophillic (sand-loving) creatures, which is a good thing since that's that for his habitat. There is also the dagger-toothed flower bat, of southeast Asia, not a Dracula-wannabe, but a "peaceful pollinator," despite his formidable fangs. Talk about being an unwanted guest--how about the Cuban solenedon, one of the few mammals with a poisonous bite, so venomous that it's not even immune to itself (no hickeys for him!) And how about the gaur, a 2200-pound bison so big that he has had no predators to take him on since ol' Smiley, the saber-toothed tiger, went extinct, likely after breaking his long fangs on an ancestor of the gaur.

And if you think you know all about the lowland and mountain gorilla, what about the zorilla, an even stinkier African cousin of the skunk with white Groucho eyebrows! These and fifteen more quirky critters are profiled in this funny and fact-filled nonfiction book, offered up with wry, self-mocking humor within speech balloons in engaging two-page spreads illustrated by the author. An irreverent but serious nature study, this one comes complete with a glossary which adds more lore, including survival status from "insufficient data" to endangered. Great for middle-reader browsing, supplementary reading, and fine fare for a nonfiction book report, this rave-reviewed book is surely a first purchase for libraries and the zoological zealot out there.

Please Feed The Animals! Worms for Breakfast: How to Feed A Zoo by Helaine Becker

It's feeding time at the zoo--and you're in charge.

If only you had a recipe book.... But wait! You do!

PLATYPUS PARTY MIX

10-15 live crayfish
1 oz. live earthworms
1/3 oz. live mealworms
1 tsp. live fly pupae

Mix all ingredients and serve immediately.

And don't let your diners dillydally, or their dinner will crawl away!

Feeding the, um, wildly disparate animals in a zoo requires a wide range of foodstuffs. Some denizens of the zoo are omnivores (bears, raccoons), like humans, and will eat almost anything that doesn't eat them. Some herbivores (elephants) are the most extreme of vegans, and some (lions and tigers) subsist solely on meat.

Some zoo dwellers are so picky they make the average kid look like a gourmand.  Koalas can eat only eucalyptus leaves (fresh-picked, please), and pandas prefer only bamboo, making them persnickety diners who expect imported food by express delivery across large land masses.

Some, on the other hand, dote on less than dainty fare. Elephants can make do with hay and many types of leaves, 660 pounds of them daily, mind you, although they thrive on choice fruits and veggies in the mix. Trouble is, elephants have a tendency to grow portly in captivity and often have to be put on low-calorie foods like celery, lettuce, and carrots that human dieters know all too well. One plump pachyderm, Shaunzi, takes the title as The Biggest Loser, shedding 1,110 pounds.

Some animals lose the mood for food when it is too easy to get, forcing zookeepers to create recipes which include ways to hide, bury, and disguise their dinners about their enclosures to make them work for their supper. Parrots prefer locked boxes that require multiple steps--locks to pick, screws to turn, and bolts to throw--to whet their appetites. And many denizens of zoos are nocturnal, needing their noshes in the wee hours, midnight to dawn. One orphaned swamp wallaby required round-the-clock babying in a special pouch with frequent feedings of wallaby formula.

Feeding every creature--from chow-hounds like the hippo to mico-diners such as the extinct-in-the-wild Partula snails, whose pureed trail mix has to be smeared on the sides of their tanks--requires a special sort of zookeeper, one with deep knowledge of animal physiology and nutrition, not to mention animal psychology, and in her just published Worms for Breakfast: How to Feed a Zoo (OwlKids Books, 2016), author Helaine Becker dishes out fun and fact-filled information from zoological sites all over the world, from San Diego Zoo to Taronga Zoo in Australia and the Tiergarten Schonbrunn in Austria. Artist Kathy Boake's digital illustrations are full of kid-pleasing sight gags--nocturnal animals raiding the fridge at midnight and gorillas gobbling primate-pleasing cookies dusted with dried ants--with a special section which features a real zoo nutritionist during his work day.

This is definitely a first purchase for libraries and classrooms, with its kid-friendly double-page spreads and fascinating critter facts. With a quiz to match feedings to animals, a glossary, an index, and advice for the care and feeding of all of us earth creatures, this one has it all for young animal lovers.  The various reviewers love this one, partly for the pun opportunities--"a browsable animal book," "a surprisingly nourishing treat," "Kiddos desperate to learn more about the zoo will scarf this down."--and this is definitely a new nonfiction book which will feed children's curiosity and hone their appetites for more fascinating animal science.

Into the Unknown: Smithsonian Readers Endless Explorations Level 4

Most of the great pioneers of space flight were world-class daydreamers. Before a leap into space, there must come a great leap of the imagination.

Our exploration of space, in fact, began as a great nighttime daydream. We looked to the stars...

Young, newly independent readers are like explorers, moving out into a world of information and imagining what might be done with it, and that is the premise of Smithsonian Readers: Endless Explorations Level 4 (Smithsonian/Silver Dolphin Books, 2015). With a knowledge base and higher-level language skills, the sky's the limit for upper elementary students to follow their interests wherever they may lead.

This volume offers fascinating facts and photographs on a wide range of subjects, from the Hubble Space Telescope and Mars Rovers to the science of tsunamis and pandemics, the ways of desert tarantulas to the migrations of blue whales, from man's history of earth flight and space flight and into the deeps of the world's oceans and what can be found there.  Six sections--Predators, Space Exploration, Natural Disasters, World Wonders, Ocean Habitats, and the Science and History of Flight--take readers in the upper elementary grades into new places and areas of knowledge.

As in all the four volumes of this series, a glossary follows each section, summarizing the terms introduced in boldface within the text, as does a brief, self-checking quiz, and punch-out cards for review and games. Vocabulary and sentence structure are appropriate for readers approaching the middle-school levels in which reading for subject content requires structure and some sophistication in the learner.

Additional reinforcing kits are also available, such as the Smithsonian Magnetic Adventures: Solar System for hands-on activities.

As for that imagination, that's a do-it-yourself activity for the reader.  Bon voyage, kids! The sky's the limit!

Just So You Know...: How to Swallow a Pig: Step-by-Step Advice from the Animal Kingdom by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

BORED?

CURIOUS?

HUNGRY?

To satisfy all of those needs (and more), Steve Jenkins provides just the right Do-It-Yourself how-to manual, with step by step instructions for, as starters, swallowing a pig.

1. Hide. (perhaps draped over the branch of a tree).

Wait.... (Here comes one now!)

3. Attack! (Lunge! Grab it with your fangs. Wrap it with your coils!)

4. Squeeze. (Hard!)

5. Swallow. (Unhinge your jaws. This takes practice!)

6. Rest. (Take a nap--for several months.)


Hairy, hoofed noshes not to your taste? Like crunchy nuts, but hate the shells?

How to Crack A Nut Like A Crow


1. First find your nut.

2. Select a perch (near a busy road).

3. Drop your nut. (where it will get run over by a car)

4. Wait for the light (and traffic stops).

5. Enjoy! (Be ready to take off fast!)

All kinds of useful skills--from spinning a web like a spider to disguising yourself like an octopus--can be mastered in five easy steps, with Steve Jenkins' and Robin Page's handy how-to-do-it, How to Swallow a Pig: Step-by-Step Advice from the Animal Kingdom (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015). With a wry take on helpful hints manuals, Jenkins and Page have created another amazing animal book with glimpses into surprisingly complex animal behaviors.

See a mimic octopus morph its familiar body shape into a facsimile of poisonous prey--a lionfish, a jellyfish, a sea snake--to outwit a big, bad barracuda. Woo a ewe with bighorn sheep, using (guess what?) their big horns to appear more studly. Watch humpback whales create a circle of bubbles as they corral whole schools of small fish, with the goal for the whales of a Big GULP! for all.

Steve Jenkin's colorful torn-paper collages create both cunningly realistic images and amazing art set off to advantage by bright white pages, while Robin Page's informational text tells how insects, mollusks, fish, reptiles, and mammals, from paper-making wasps to insect repellent-making capuchin monkeys, shape surprising ways to carry out their daily chores. Nobody does nature study for young readers better than Jenkins and Page, always with fun facts, a sly sense of humor, and eye-catching book design that go down way easier than a hairy hog. For young naturalists with inquiring minds, Page and Jenkins append a bibliography and glossary of animals with thumbnail illustrations for more information on critters covered in the text. Bravo again, Jenkins and Page!

Fastest, Fiercest, Most Surprising...: The Animal Book by Steve Jenkins

"When I was six years old, I was given a copy of Life magazine. On the cover was a remarkable illustration of a bird and a tortoise. Inside, I found an article describing Charles Darwin's 1835 voyage to the Gallapagos Islands. The illustrations of marine iguanas, giant tortoises, and blue-footed boobies were fascinating. I cut out the pictures, pasted them into a blank journal, and wrote my own captions."
-- Steve Jenkins

Since that time the happy union of a consuming interest in the animal kingdom and a unique feel for art and book design has led Steve Jenkins to create many benchmark volumes about animals, from his early Caldecott book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This?, kid-magnet books such as What Do You Do When Something Wants To Eat You? or Biggest, Strongest, Fastest, and his eye-popping, mind-bending Actual Size.

Now comes Jenkins magnum opus, The Animal Book: A Collection of the Fastest, Fiercest, Toughest, Cleverest, Shyest--and Most Surprising--Animals on Earth (Houghton Mifflin, 2013), which focuses on those superlative examples of the animal world and which  will call forth all the verbal superlatives that reviewers can render--stunning, engrossing, dazzling, endlessly absorbing--all well-earned by Jenkins and co-author Robin Page.  Both a wow-inspiring browsing book for animal enthusiasts, endowed with jewel-like torn-paper collage illustrations of great delicacy and accuracy, and a well-organized reference which can serve students from primary to secondary grades, Jenkin's large format pages show and tell about those "most surprising" animals, from the long-lived tube worm (170 years) and giant barrel sponge (2,300 years!) to the most deadly poisonous sea krait snake, the cone snail, and box jellyfish, to the variety in size, from the extinct megladon shark to the tiny rotifer, half the size of this period.

Jenkins divides the book into discrete chapters--Animals (classification), Family (Reproduction), Animal Senses, Predators, Defenses, Animal Extremes, and The Story of Life--all concluding in a "Facts" section, which feature assorted informational graphics such as time lines, bar graphs, tables, and often use an iconic human to show scale. An extensive appendix, "More Animal Facts," includes thumbnail illustrations and descriptions of the more than 300 animals featured, from African bee to yellow tang, a very inclusive glossary and bibliography, and Jenkins' unique addition for young artists, "Making a Book," which covers the creative process and manufacture of his books.

Those are the facts about the book, but the real impact comes from paging through the book itself, being face to face with a snarling tiger, eyeballs to eyeball (it has only one) with the colossal squid, the world's largest invertebrate, a life-sized Goliath tarantula, or the hand of the gorilla, the largest primate, holding the pygmy lemur, the smallest primate.  Depending upon what he features, Jenkins shows insects as specimens, dorsal-side up,  some animals in profile, some in three-quarters profile, and some, particularly the mammals, in full-face, looking back at us with uncanny scrutiny. Scrupulously arranged in logical sections, with brief captions which capture each animal's uniqueness, The Animal Book: A Collection of the Fastest, Fiercest, Toughest, Cleverest, Shyest--and Most Surprising--Animals on Earth is a book that is more than the sum of its parts, one which leaves the reader with the same awe of the wonder that is the animal kingdom which first inspired the six-year-old author.

Bottoms Up!: Animals Upside Down by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

WHAT DO SPIDERS, BATS, AND BIRDS OF PARADISE HAVE IN COMMON?

Along with many other creatures, they turn upside down. A few of them, in fact, spend most of their lives that way.

But animals go bottoms-up for different reasons.

The upside-down jellyfish rests, tentacle-side up, its head planted on the floor of the ocean, masquerading as a water plant, with its tendrils drifting back and forth with the current until an unwary prey floats into its reach.  Then--ZAP--it's meal time!

Mallards dabble upside down, with only their cute little duck tails above water, using their wide bills to forage on the muddy bottom for a ducky dinner.

The sparrowhawk flies right side up... until it spots a snack-sized bird for its breakfast. Birds are programmed to watch for raptors from above, so this small hawk flips in flight and mounts its sneak attack from  the prey's  blind side below.  And since bats can't reach airspeed right side up, they sleep upside down and let gravity do the work when they drop-glide into flight for the  night shift.

Sloths make like Red Riding Hood's wolf, "the better to eat you, my dear," as they hang by their curved claws, conserving energy, while they snack on low-calorie leaves. Three diverse animals use the upside down position to feign death: the pale green beetle and o'possum do the flop, legs stiff in the air, to appear unappetizingly dead. But the hog-nosed snake tops all of them with an act any Academy Award winner could envy: he inverts with his pale underbelly up, secretes a smelly liquid that makes him reek like road kill, and even adds a persuasive trickle of blood from his mouth.

And the male bird of paradise turns himself into a feathery Valentine to woo a lady, flipping and displaying his bright underside to wow and woo his sweetheart.

Robin Page's and Steve Jenkins' forthcoming Animals Upside Down: A Pull, Pop, Lift & Learn Book! (Houghton Mifflin, 2013) is replete with gorgeous animal drawings from illustrator Jenkins and highly readable text by author Page. But in a departure from their many award-winning nature study books, this one ventures into the interactive book genre, quaintly called "Toy and Movable Books." With surprising special effects in the form of pop-ups, flaps, pull-tabs, and wheels to make amazing things happen on the page:  a swimming mallard paddles across the water until a tab-pull flips a flap and shows him bottom up; a pop-up fruit bat explodes from its perch, upside down, its wings spread wide; a threatened skunk does a handstand, raises his tail, and lets fire with his memorable stinky spray stuff and pangolins, woolly monkeys, and green monkey skinks use their prehensile tails to swing through the treetops.

Adding the hands-on feature to Jenkins' notable illustrations make this book a surefire child pleaser and with ultra sturdy moving parts and an appendix of picture index of featured creatures to prod further reading, Animals Upside Down: A Pull, Pop, Lift & Learn Book! is a rising star in interactive nonfiction for the primary grades.

Happily Page and Jenkins end their book by taking the focus right back to reader, with a child flipping to do an upside downer in a full handstand.

Turning upside down helps animals in lots of different ways....
But sometimes going topsy-turvy is just for fun!

Born Free, Living Free: Wild Horse Scientists by Kay Fry

Jay knows he’s close enough now. Silently, in one fluid motion, he lifts the loaded rifle to his shoulder, takes aim, and squeezes the trigger.

A muffled pop then, a whoosh of compressed air. There’s no deafenng explosion, because this gun doesn’t fire bullets. It’s a lightweight .22, modified for a small dart containing PZP at close range.

The mare’s head flies up, more from the sound than from the sting of the needle. The dart pops back out almost immediately, as it is made to do. The wild horse trots off to the comfort of her band, no more concerned than if she’d been stung by a large, pesky horsefly.

PZP is what makes it possible for wild horses to continue living free on Assateague Island today.

In this latest addition to their notable nonfiction series, Scientists in the Field, Kay Frydenborg’s Wild Horse Scientists (Scientists in the Field Series) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012), the author follows two scientists engaging in ground-breaking field research – Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick, whose original specialty was embryonic transplantation, and Allison Turner, of the National Park Service, assigned to monitor the wild herd on Assateague. For  more than twenty years, these two had engaged in detailed observations and laboratory studies to devise a radically new birth control vaccine for wild horses, to be used both on the barrier islands of the Atlantic coast and in the American West.

With the demise of natural predators, the single greatest threat to North America’s wild herds has been overpopulation. The only intervention then available to those who wanted to perpetuate the wild herds had been annual drives to round up the horses, pen them up, and cull the bands by roping the foals and finding adoptive owners. But the stress and danger to the horses and an increasing backlog of unadopted horses convinced horse lovers that they needed a more benign form of population control, one that was 100 per cent effective and non-invasive, one that even enabled the affected mares to live longer, healthier lives in the wild.

Enter our intrepid animal behavior scientists, whose meticulous documentation of the individual horses, collection of specimens which analyzed hormone fluctuations in the native horse population, and careful experimentation under difficult conditions–intense heat, storms, damp, misty cold, swarms of mosquitoes, and dense vegetation – allowed for eventual proof of the efficacy of cutting-edge vaccines.

Frydenborg’s text is clear and highly readable, even suspenseful at times, and the color photographs of America’s iconic wild horses stud the pages with illuminating illustrations that amplify the text. Numerous text boxes provide middle readers with background information – on the evolutionary history and color variations of horses, archaeological findings, and intriguing Fast Facts – and extensive appendices with glossary, bibliography of books, web sites and other media, and a detailed index make Wild Horse Scientists (Scientists in the Field Series) not only fascinating reading for horse enthusiasts but a great source of inspiration for young would-be scientists who may be attracted to active outdoor field study.

Numbering the Days: Counting on Fall by Lizann Flatt

WHAT IF NATURE KNEW NUMBERS LIKE YOU?

LET'S LOOK AT THE FALL.
CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT COUNTING COULD DO?

Who'd count the leaves
falling from trees,
stirred and disturbed,
by the passing breeze?

The turning of the season tells us it's time to turn to those autumn concept books that teach temperate-zone kids what the turning of time means in nature. They can count on change in the air and in the earth around them, in Lizann Flatt's forthcoming Counting on Fall (Math in Nature) (Owlkids Books, 2012).

If honk-honking geese
kept to groups of ten apiece,
what a sight that would make
At the lake!

[Can you see several ways to make up ten?
Can you think of other ways to make ten?]

Flatt's loose, easy-rhyming text encourages kids to count, not just from one to ten, but by sets of twos or fives or tens, both ways, up and down.

With toes like those
do you suppose
raccoons can count on trouble?

[Can you count the toes by fives?]

Ashley Barron's stylized torn-paper collages in subtle autumnal shades work well, for the most part, imparting a comfortable mellow mood to the scenes of fall plants and animals as black bears gobble up berries and squirrels tote up their acorns by fives, although a few darkish illustrations require some close-up scrutiny. A two-page spread of ready-for-hibernation brown bats features both hanging bats wide awake and some soundly asleep to tote up. Other double spreads offer glowingly charming composition, such as appealing pikas gathering flowers for their burrow storehouses, or a stand-out spread of Canada geese which deftly makes use of perspective to teach the tens concept.

Flatt's text offers math concepts that span the primary grades, from simple preschool counting to estimation and multiple sets of twos and fives and tens, making this book a worthy addition to the number of counting and seasonal books among the primary bookshelves. Text boxes within each double-page spread extend the activity with higher level and open-ended questions. and an appended "Nature Notes" provides more detailed data on plants and animals in the order shown in the book for the detail-minded student or science teacher.

"Barron’s cut-paper collages have the crispness of an autumn afternoon, and Flatt smoothly touches on estimation, counting by fives and tens, counting backwards, and other mathematical concepts while maintaining a gentle, whimsical tone," observes Publishers Weekly in timely fashion.

Dining Out: Time to EAT by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

What's for dinner in the animal kingdom?

Well, almost anything you can imagine--and some you'd just as soon not think about too much! Steve Jenkins and Robin Page provide their usual beautiful nature illustrations, detailed and realistic as a biology text, but their brief text lets it all hang out. Nature is as nature does, and when it comes to the dinner plate, nature has some weird tastes!

A cute chipmunk stuffs his prodigious cheek pouches with seeds and a sweet-looking panda gravely munches bamboo foliage as expected:

NOT SHOOTS AND LEAVES AGAIN!

But meanwhile over in the thorn tree, a butcherbird is impaling a protesting grasshopper on a handy thorn (OUCH!) and down in the dirt a dung beetle is rolling his ball of--(well, you know) concentrated poo toward his dugout, a tick is slurping up 100 times his own weight in the blood of his unwary host, and down in the tropics the giant anaconda is opening his throat and swallowing a goat (GULP!) in one of his three meals of the year!

These guys make a group of tots look like poster children for table manners!

Meanwhile, other strange but less disgusting dining habits among the animal kingdom are displayed--the tiger shark noshing on shoes and license plates along with the more nutritious fish, the black widow spider spinning his silk around an immobilized bug, and the baby blue whale proving that he's the mammalian champ, slugging down the equivalent of 800 baby bottles of his mommy's rich milk per day!

Two celebrated author-illustrators have got to be better than one, and in Steve Jenkins' and Robin Page's Time to Eat (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011) we have an exemplary product of the power of collaboration. Jenkins' and Page's classic cut-and-torn-paper collages are expressive and charming, and their engaging text tells all vis-a-vis those gustatory curiosities. All in all, seventeen animals are featured in full- or double-page illustrations, set off spot-art style, with nicely-sized font for young readers. An appendix features thumbnail illustrations and fact-index for further information on the featured animals. A "standout science title from the husband-and-wife team," says Booklist with a starred review.

Companion books in this notable nature trilogy are Time to Sleep and Time for a Bath.
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Nonfiction That Makes the Grade: Great Migrations: Amazing Animal Journeys by Laura Marsh

WHEN ANIMALS TRAVEL FROM ONE REGION OR CLIMATE TO ANOTHER, IT IS CALLED MIGRATION.

MIGRATION HELPS ANIMALS SURVIVE ON EARTH.

MANY ANIMALS MIGRATE. THIS BOOK IS ABOUT ZEBRAS, RED CRABS, AND WALRUSES. THEIR GREAT MIGRATIONS ARE INCREDIBLE JOURNEYS.

When it comes to making the many mysteries of animal behavior understandable, National Geographic has no peer, as in Laura Marsh's brand-new National Geographic Readers: Great Migrations Amazing Animal Journeys (National Geographic Kids, 2010). Migration is one of the seeming miracles of life on earth. How do animals know when and where to go to find the right habitat at the right time? How do they "remember" where and when to make such travels? What forces within or without guide them on these incredible journeys?

Marsh's newest Level 3 beginning reader takes on this explanation for three very different animals with very different needs from their environment. Zebras travel nearly 400 miles through Botswana following good grazing conditions; red crabs, land crabs of the Christian Islands of the Pacific and the northwest coast of Australia, move to their breeding grounds in such numbers that they sometimes require "Crab Crossing" signs on the local roads and climb 40-foot cliffs as they make their annual mass migration; and walruses move through the Bering Straits from the Bering Sea to the Chukchi Sea seeking lasting ice floes to support their own marine lifestyle.

A well-designed and appealing little volume, this one has well-placed text boxes to explain concepts and terms encountered in the narration, and like all National Geographic products, its large, clear color photos are worth a thousand words in portraying content to young readers. A very useful picture glossary defines and illustrates terms such as "predator," "instinct," and "larvae" introduced in and crucial to the meaning of Marsh's simple but informative text.

Whether used to supplement classroom units or to satisfy the curiosity of young animal lovers, National Geographic Readers: Great Migrations Amazing Animal Journeys and other National Geographic Kids books in this series, such as Elizabeth Carney's Great Migrations: Whales, Wildebeests, Butterflies, Elephants, and Other Amazing Animals on the Move (National Geographic Kids) and Marsh's National Geographic Readers: Great Migrations Butterflies are super brain-builders which help beginning readers "make the grade" in elementary science.